# History of C

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< c‎ | language

## Early C

- 1969: B created, based on BCPL, to replace PDP-7 assembler as the system programming language for Unix

  - added operators ++, --, compound assignment, remained a typeless language like BCPL

- 1971: NB ("new B") created when porting B to PDP-11

  - types (int, char, arrays and pointers), array-to-pointer conversion, compilation to machine code

- 1972: Language renamed to C

  - struct, operators && and ||, preprocessor, portable I/O

- 1973: Unix re-written in C

  - unsigned, long, union, enumerations, increased type safety

- 1978: The C Programming Language, 1st edition

## Standard C

- 1983: ANSI established X3J11 committee
- 1988: The C Programming Language, 2nd edition
- 1989: C89, the ANSI C standard published

1. codified existing practices
2. new features: volatile, enum, signed, void, locales
3. From C++: const, function prototypes

- 1990: C90, the ANSI C standard accepted as ISO/IEC 9899:1990
- 1994: Technical corrigendum 1 (ISO/IEC 9899:1990/Cor.1:1994)

  - 44 small changes

- 1995: C95 (ISO/IEC 9899:1990/Amd.1:1995) (online store)

1. greatly expanded wide and multibyte character support (`<wctype.h>`, `<wchar.h>`, additions and changes to stream I/O, etc)
2. digraphs, `<iso646.h>`,

- 1996: Technical corrigendum 2 (ISO/IEC 9899:1990/Cor.2:1996)

  - 24 small changes

- 1999: C99 (ISO/IEC 9899:1999)

1. new features: bool, long long, `<stdint.h>`, `<inttypes.h>`, restrict, compound literals, variable length arrays, flexible array members, designated initializers, `<fenv.h>`, variadic macros, complex numbers, __func__, hexadecimal floating-point format (%a), monetary formatting in lconv, isblank, concatenation of narrow and wide string literals, trailing comma in enumerations, empty arguments in function-like macros, STDC_* pragmas, va_copy, null return of tmpnam, null pointer in setvbuf, `hh` and `ll` length-specifiers in printf, snprintf, _Exit, `<tgmath.h>`, POSIX-like strftime specifiers
2. from C++: inline, mix declarations and code, declarations in the init-clause of the for loop, // comments, universal character names in source code
3. removed implicit functions and implicit int

- 2001: Technical corrigendum 1 (ISO/IEC 9899:1999/Cor.1:2001)

  - 11 defects fixed

- 2004: Technical corrigendum 2 (ISO/IEC 9899:1999/Cor.2:2004)
- 2004: Unicode TR (ISO/IEC TR 19769:2004) (ISO store) (N1040 November 7, 2003 draft)
- 2007: Technical corrigendum 3 (ISO/IEC 9899:1999/Cor.3:2007) (N1256 September 7, 2007 draft)

  - deprecated gets

- 2007: Bounds-checking interfaces TR (ISO/IEC TR 24731-1:2007) (ISO store) (N1225 March 28, 2007 draft)
- 2008: Embedded TR (ISO/IEC TR 18037:2008) (ISO store) (N1021 September 24, 2003 draft)
- 2009: Decimal floating-point TR (ISO/IEC TR 24732:2009) (ISO store) (N1241 July 5, 2007 draft)
- 2009: Mathematical special functions TR (ISO/IEC TR 24747:2009) (ISO store) (N1182 August 2, 2006 draft)
- 2010: Dynamic allocations functions TR (ISO/IEC TR 24731-2:2010) (ISO store) (N1388 June 1, 2009 draft)
- 2011: C11 (ISO/IEC 9899:2011) (ISO store) (ANSI store) (N1570 April 12, 2011 draft)

1. thread-aware memory model, `<stdatomic.h>`, `<threads.h>`, type-generic functions, alignas/alignof, noreturn, static_assert, analyzability extensions, extensions to complex and imaginary types, anonymous structures and unions, exclusive file open mode, quick_exit
2. removed gets
3. from Bounds-checking interfaces TR: bounds-checking interfaces,
4. from Unicode TR: char16_t, char32_t, and `<uchar.h>`

- 2012: Technical corrigendum 1 (ISO/IEC 9899:2011/Cor 1:2012) (ISO store)

  - Fixes DR 411

- 2013: Secure Coding Rules TS (ISO/IEC TS 17961:2013) (ISO store) (N1718 May 30, 2013)
- 2014: FP TS part 1: Binary floating-point arithmetic (ISO/IEC TS 18661-1:2014) (ISO store) (N1778 2013 draft)

1. provides changes to C11 (mostly to Annex F) that cover all basic requirements and some recommendations of IEC 60559:2011 (C11 was built on IEC 60559:1989)

- 2015: FP TS part 2: Decimal floating-point arithmetic (ISO/IEC TS 18661-2:2015) (ISO store) (N1912 2015 draft)

1. provides changes to C11 to support all the requirements, plus some basic recommendations, of IEC 60559:2011 for decimal floating-point arithmetic. This supersedes ISO/IEC TR 24732:2009.

- 2015: FP TS part 3: Interchange and extended types (ISO/IEC TS 18661-3:2015) (ISO store) (N1945 2015 draft)

1. provides changes to C11 to support the recommendations of IEC 60559:2011 for extended floating‐point formats and the interchange formats, both arithmetic and non-arithmetic.

- 2015: FP TS part 4: Supplementary functions (ISO/IEC TS 18661-4:2015) (ISO store) (N1950 2015 draft)

1. provides changes to C11 to support all mathematical operations recommended by IEC 60559:2011, including trigonometry in π units, inverse square root, compounded interest, etc.

- 2016: FP TS part 5: Supplementary attributes (ISO/IEC TS 18661-5:2016) (ISO store) (N2004 2016 draft)

1. provides changes to C11 to support all supplementary attributes (evaluation model, exception handling, reproducibility, etc) recommended by IEC 60559:2011

- 2018: C17 (ISO/IEC 9899:2018) (ISO Store) (Final draft)

  Main Article: C17

Defect Reports fixed in C17 (54 defects)
DR 400 DR 401 DR 402 DR 403 DR 404 DR 405 DR 406 DR 407 DR 410 DR 412 DR 414 DR 415 DR 416 DR 417 DR 419 DR 423 DR 426 DR 428 DR 429 DR 430 DR 431 DR 433 DR 434 DR 436 DR 437 DR 438 DR 439 DR 441 DR 444 DR 445 DR 447 DR 448 DR 450 DR 452 DR 453 DR 457 DR 458 DR 459 DR 460 DR 462 DR 464 DR 465 DR 468 DR 470 DR 471 DR 472 DR 473 DR 475 DR 477 DR 480 DR 481 DR 485 DR 487 DR 491

- 2023 C23 (ISO/IEC 9899:2024). C23 is the current revision of the C standard.

  Main Article: C23

Defect Reports fixed in C23 (? defects)
DR 440 DR 432 DR 467 DR 476 DR 482 DR 488 DR 489 DR 494 DR 496 DR 497 DR 499 DR 500 DR 501

### Future development

- Parallelism TS (Draft N2017 2016-03-10)
- Transactional Memory TS (Draft N1961 2015-09-23)
- C (Latest draft n3435 2025-01-03)

1. List of issues that were not granted DR status: (N2556 2020-08-02)

  Main Article: C29 ?
  Next major C language standard revision

### See also

C++ documentation for History of C++

### External links

1. | The Development of the C Language by Dennis M. Ritchie
2. | Rationale for the C99 standard

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